Happy Trails: Journey Through the Psalms of AscentSample

How often we approach our lives as though we are the general contractor and God is the subcontractor doing what we tell Him and being blamed when things don’t go as planned. It looks so appealing from the outside: we get the credit and the illusion of control! But it’s exhausting to keep up false appearances -- that God is our hired help -- and unless we place Him where He belongs in our hearts as LORD and humbly accept His unmerited love, our promised inheritance of rest is out of reach. The multitude of our responsibilities will keep our lamps on late into the night, wake us before dawn, and our breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack will be the same crumbly “bread of anxious toil”.

But thankfully, God is not like us. He is all-powerful. He never sleeps, not even a single cat nap. He doesn’t get hungry. We can entrust all things to the one formed the universe and close our eyes at night in faith even when our to-do list sprawls before us, begging for our attention. We can work from a place of peace each day knowing joyfully that it isn’t all up to us, and we can rest our souls in Him for “He gives to His beloved sleep”.

1. What sort of “bread” have you been eating more of these days? Anxious toil? Or God’s word?
2. How is rest an act of faith?
3. Where in your life have you believed that it all depends on you? Entrust it back to God.
4. Check in on the amount of sleep that you are getting at night. If you are struggling to get sleep, is there anything that you can rearrange in your schedule or say no to in the future? If you struggle to sleep from a racing mind, write down some verses to read in the night to remind you of God’s steadfast promises.